To think these baby boomers are missing the point?

[Hundredacrewoods]

I grew up in an area where house prices have quadrupled since 2000. I consider this an intergenerational equity issue. Whenever the topic of house prices and 'millennials' comes up with my parents' generation, all I hear is how hard they worked and how much they sacrificed to get on the property ladder. AIBU to think that they're missing the point? No one is denying that they worked hard and sacrificed. The point is that if they worked just as hard today, and made the same sacrifices, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

You just need to buy a property BEFORE you have have kids and pay stuipid amounts of private rent - it's not rocket science.
My rent was more than my mortgage is now.
Please enlighten me as to how you get a 5/10% deposit on a house when house prices are over 10 times the average salary in some places and most income covers extortionate private rent.

Or should people not have families because they'll still be saving at 40?

I'm a homeowner in my 20s. But I'm under no illusion that if i lived somewhere else I wouldn't be.

15% of £30k for most baby boomers

Yanbu OP. My parents had a sahp, a relatively low earning woth parent and had 3 children in a large house in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Unthinkable now. And although my dad was pretty hard working my mum wasn’t!

You just need to buy a property BEFORE you have have kids and pay stuipid amounts of private rent

Why do you think people only pay stupid amounts of rent without kids? Rents are high regardless whether you have children or not.

Yes, and we will have it better than the next generation.

I'm talking about people who may never be able to buy property, due to wages decreasing in real terms and a housing bubble, Notsuchasmugmarried. Your advice to simply 'just buy a property', regardless or whether it's before or after kids, is not helpful.

RedForFilth I bought a house now, in my 20s. I just don’t waste my money on iPhones etc....

You just need to buy a property BEFORE you have have kids and pay stuipid amounts of private rent - it's not rocket science really? It's that simple for everyone is it? Sorry I should have anticipated being raped as a student and becoming pregnant and bought a house beforehand. Many people also would be out of time biologically if they waited to buy a house first.

Me and my fiancé are really struggling with trying to get on the property ladder. We save every penny we get. Give ourselves 20quid each a week to spend with no questions asked,if I want something really nice I save the 20's until I have it. Now we are looking at just cutting that altogether. We have been given the most amazing gift from my parent's of a small plot of land to build on. Happy days we thought-but no. The banks wont lend us an amount even close to build our family home. We live in a one bedroom at the moment and really want to start our family. We can't even get close to the cost of building a home suitable for two kids. I'm not talking a massive house,just something basic.
Our only option is to rent somewhere bigger once we have kids. But then we will never be able to afford to save for the build. I know there are people in far worse situations than us but I'm just so upset. We are both in caring professions which don't pay well. Sometimes I wish I used my head rather than my heart when choosing my college course. We work really hard and just want to have a home to start a family. Knowing that when we bring our babies home from the hospital that will be the home they grow up in. Not the uncertainty of renting which has stung us badly before.
I don't even know the point of what I'm saying,I'm just ranting and heart broken

I am not a baby boomer, but also think people these days don't like saving and living frugally. I know my parents did. They were home owners, but also mended everything including socks to nake things last.

I think that part of the reason young people spend on 'luxuries' is because a house seems like such an unattainable purchase that they almost can't see the point of trying to save for it, because they will never get there.

It is also hard to get by in today's society without all the tech that older generations might consider excessive - it is just the norm now. We live in a instagram/fb world where everyone seems to be living more affluent lives than us, temptation to spend is everywhere - I don't believe we have ever been so rampantly consumerist as we are now and that is so hard for young people to resist, when coupled with very high house prices.

The point is that if they worked just as hard today, and made the same sacrifices, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

That is indeed the point, and my and older generations don't seem to be getting that. Younger generations need to put in 4 or 5 times the effort to be able to obtain what the older generations have.

We had a house with 125% mortgage on 1 1/4 modal salary no problem in the 80s. Our children have to both work and then struggle to find financing.

I agree, my dad was 'hard-working' home at 3.30 most days as a headteacher and my mum was a stay at home mum, which is hard work but no more than any other SAHP! They do admit they did fewer hours than me and my husband did and still managed to buy a three bed, then five bed on average teacher salaries. They know this is not possible now, though.

I think if you live outside of London then buying a house is not impossible... really don’t now how normal people live in London.

I’ve been really lucky to get on the housing ladder. I currently live in a big 4 bed house with gardens back and front and the house value is 8 times my husbands salary (i am a sahm). We can only afford to live here because I bought a 3 bed terrace which was an absolute hovel in 2000 when I was 18. That hovel only cost me £28k and another £6k to make it habitable (which took me 18 months due to a lack of money). That same house is now worth £120k and is all we would be able to buy if we were first time buyers now on our current income.
We got lucky because I bought my first house at the right time and we bought our next houses at the right time.
My mum got even more lucky because although she only bought her first house 10 years ago, she bought her council house and got a 78% discount due to being a council tenant for over 25 years.
My children won’t be so lucky and might not ever be able to buy a property.

The thing is though, why should you have to live frugally to buy a house? A home is a fairly basic human need. All this talk of £20 a week spends and bedsits and evening jobs- there is nothing wrong with them but that shouldn’t be what’s required from “everyone” to buy a house. That’s what maybe low earners would have to do, and that’s not ideal, but low earners do suffer at the unreasonable end of life by default.

Baby boomers didn’t suffer. They lived with their parents and saved until they were married then they bought a house together. That’s not frugal, or sufferage, it’s jist different to most young people’s lives today

The difference between the well off and the rest are far greater both within Millennials and within boomers far exceed the differences between generations. You are not going to get the reaction you want if you tell a boomer who isn't sitting in a £500k house and who hasn't voted Tory in their life that they are responsible for the troubles today.

For those who say "you got free university education" - no, most didn't. 80% of those going to university today wouldn't have gone in boomer years. In fact they probably wouldn't have had the chance to do A-levels, or even a qualification at 16 that was recognised by employers. School leaving age was still 15; even if you stayed till 16, that's only 11 years free education enjoyed by most compared with the standard 4 till 18 of today.

It would be more logical to turn your anger on to the increasing share of wealth going to the already very rich.

Also it was easier in the early naughties. Most of my friends (London) bought easily with 100% or 110% mortgage (my sister bought 3 and recently sold them for more than a million) we bought a £350k house in central London in 2003 with a 10% deposit. Just £35k plus the stamp duty.

We sold that house for £900k. Due to circumstances I recently bought a house for £270k and had to pay a £45k deposit. Big difference.
I think there is an argument to bring back 100% mortgage under controls

Yanbu. We have the same conversations from my dh grandparents. They basically think we’re whingeing and refuse to offer any financial help in order for us to get on the property ladder (despite owning 4 houses and having so much spare cash that they told mil they ‘didn’t know what to do with it). Last time we saw them they told us about how poor they were when they first started out in their careers. They had to pay half their income on rent (I’m mean can you imagine), for a....massive 2 bed flat in Kingston!!! They have no idea that it’s common now for people to pay half their income for 1 room in an expensive city! They became massively wealthy in property because of the area they lived, Kingston, Thames ditton. It’s hard to keep your mouth shut when they’re going on in that delusional way.

The baby-boomers are the biggest group of brexiteers. Of course young people are entitled to feel annoyed with the people who are screwing them over.

Well I think people spend their money on other things now than they used to. Mobile phones, iPads, travelling, takeaways, eating out, daily coffees. This all adds up.

I agree. When I was a student we probably had one cheap meal out once a year and generally lived very frugally. I don't recognise the student life of the 21st century compared with mine. And post student years I lived well within my relatively limited means (weekly budgeting) and saved, saved, saved to have money for a deposit. It didn't come easy or quickly unless one was earning big bucks.

And remember that although the 'boomers' (particularly the early years ones) may have had it so good in some ways, they lived through the austerity of the post war decades, with the legacy of WW2 looming large. You've only got to watch programmes like 'Call the Midwife' to see that the 50s and 60s were still hard times in which to be adults.

I think expectations of what constitutes a good life/standard of living are just totally different now. Yes, house prices were affordable for all but the few back in the 50s/60s and even 70s but many families made sacrifices in other ways to get that roof over their head. There just wasn't the 'spend, spend, spend' mentality that people have these days.

t would be more logical to turn your anger on to the increasing share of wealth going to the already very rich
My anger is directed there.
I don't spend time getting annoyed that life was different for baby. Frustrated yes.

What does anger me is the patronising way some of tjem talk as if they scrimped and saved, they worked hard, everything was so bloody difficult for them but these 20s/30 somethings don't know hard work and are more bothered about cocktails than a house. That's what annoys me.

Cake20189 bully for you! I had to move out at 16, managed to get some qualifications and went to uni. Met a physically, financially and sexually abusive partner, got into drugs, got pregnant during one of his attacks. So my problems were not having a iPhone. In fact I've never had an iPhone.

I saved for my house but it was fine, yes I didn’t have latest iPhone and didn’t buy any clothes but being frugal is fine. My parents did it, my dad earned £30 a week and they lived in a flat until they saved for a deposit for a house. They lived off lentils. They didn’t have graze subscriptions and beauty boxes and Ocado delivery’s. People spend thier money on nonsense today, that’s why they can’t buy a house.

I think houses were a lot easier to buy and people didn't need a big deposit. But they were prepared to start off in a modest place in a not great area. And didn't expect to have everything yesterday while running up bills on credit cards and having all the latest must have's.

Baby boomers didn’t suffer. They lived with their parents and saved until they were married then they bought a house together.

And herein lies the problem. That is a pipe- dream that SOME babyboomers had.

Others of us started in a hovel, buying with a friend, sharing one bedroom, til we could upgrade, and upgrade and upgrade... no furniture other than skip-diving, work, eat, sleep, repeat.

Now in a great position, I personally had 7 years of beyond frugal (I had nothing - no telly, no phone, no insurance, no car) on above average wages in a nice stable job - all because I wanted my own house 10 years down the line.

This is why some of us baby-boomers do the "cardboard box in the middle of the road" routine.